Here's looking at you, kid!

I took this fellow's picture at the Long Branch, too.

Halloween on the Coastside

Where I live, there are many pumpkin farms. Today, we visited a different kind of pumpkin patch--Long Branch, about six miles south of Half Moon Bay on highway 1. It is usually not open to the public, because it is usually rented out to companies or groups that have meetings and parties there. For the month of October, they held it open to anyone, so we drove down to check it out. One picture shows an overall view of the town. Some of the buildings are just fake fronts, but in the "saloon" is the actual Palace Hotel bar, which survived the San Francisco Earthquake. There are a few live farm and exotic animals and a lovely cow skull--very appropriate for this time of year.

Finally finished--mystery shawl 3!

I took this shot as it was blocking--this is the famous Mystery Shawl 3! I used a camel/silk blend yarn from elann.com, and didn't quite have enough--I had to leave off the last repeat of the lace pattern. But the shawl is just the right size for me.

Linda McDonald Bear Quilt

I was the lucky bidder on this Linda McDonald Bear quilt at the recent fundraising auction for the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. She airbrushes the image onto fabric--this piece is very small (about 18 inches square) but many of her quilts are very large and intricate. She was the featured guest on the same Simply Quilts when I had the opening short segment, and I have always wanted to own one of her pieces.

Photo Needle Case at PIQF

I saw this needlecase at the PIQF show and just loved it. The artist scanned her actual knitting needles and yarn, and printed them on fabric, then sewed the case. What a great idea! I believe this needle case was in the display for the book I plugged in the previous post ("Innovative Fabric Imagery"), but I don't know if it's in the book itself. The label next to it says it is called "I know where to find my needles bag", but I can't read the artist's name.

Innovative Imagery book with my quilt

I just have to brag--a new book was just published, and it has a picture of this quilt of mine, Yellow Leaves with Grate. I took the photo while attending Art Quilt Tahoe at Squaw Creek, printed it on fabric and sewed the prints together to make the quilt top.

My quilt is shown on page 86 of "Innovative Fabric Imagery for Quilts: Must-Have Guide to Transforming & Printing Your Favorite Images on Fabric" by Cyndy Lyle Rymer and Lynn Koolis, just published by C&T. It's on preorder at amazon.com, but I picked up a copy in the Cotton Patch booth at the Pacific International Quilt Festival a couple of weeks ago.

SAQA meeting at Judith Content's house

We are so lucky that the new president of Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) lives nearby! And she offers her home for our meetings about once a year. Her home and garden are truly an extension of her artwork. We met there last Saturday, and I took a few pictures. As you can see, she loves to arrange wonderful, eclectic things all over the house. I wonder how much time she spends dusting???

Victoria and Albert Museum needlework

I didn't have time to see much needlework in London, but I did take these shots at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The first is a lovely piece of embroidery called "Fantasy" by Rebecca Crompton, 1936. According to the label, "She was an influential educator and one of Britain's leading exponents of free, creative machine embroidery. Her control of the machine was such that she could create embroideries of great subtlety." I didn't make notes about the other two, but isn't that knitted lace shawl stunning? And I loved the old hand knitted socks in the third photo.